


In Times When We Don't Know

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Hold Tight to What You Love [7]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Barry Allen has ADHD, M/M, Pregnancy, Trans Barry Allen, Trans Cisco Ramon, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: The time loop is going to hang over their heads until the twins are born. If something happens to them, Barry will be devastated. Leonard vows then that he won’t get attached to the idea of children until after they’re born. That way, if something goes wrong, he can focus entirely on being there for Barry.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: Hold Tight to What You Love [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571482
Comments: 33
Kudos: 179





	1. Chapter 1

After being pulled from the time loop the Speed Force locked him in, it takes Barry almost a month to work up the courage to ask for an ultrasound. Leonard holds his hand while Caitlin daubs gel on his abdomen. They watch the screen together. Leonard hardly dares to breathe. 

“Oh, look!” Barry gasps. 

There’s a blurry black blob on the screen—vaguely humanoid, with miniscule curled limbs and a large head. Leonard brings Barry’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. After everything he’d endured in that time loop, neither of them had much hope, but now…

Caitlin offers them a little smile. “It’s a little early to tell, but it doesn’t look like the time loop harmed your fetus.”

Barry’s hand twitches in Leonard’s. When he lets him go, he claps, flat-palmed and happy. It’s the first time Leonard has seen him happy stim since before the Crisis, and it gives him the same thrill of warmth as seeing their baby on the screen. “She’s alive, oh, she’s still alive! Len, we’re gonna have a baby!” 

“‘She’, Scarlet?” Leonard raises an indulgent eyebrow. He would like a daughter—he’s had experience raising Lisa—but it seems a little early to tell. 

Barry touches his belly, seemingly on instinct, and pulls his hand away in dismay upon encountering the gel. “Ick, never mind. I just have a feeling.” Softly, he adds, “Plus, I’d like to have a daughter.”

“Uh.” Caitlin shifts the ultrasound. “…I may have some news about that.”

“We’re having a boy?” Barry glances back at the screen almost dismissively. His shocked yelp draws Leonard’s attention to the scan one more time. Almost hidden by their sibling, a second fetus’s head is just visible. “We’re having twins!” 

“Twins,” Leonard repeats numbly. He can see the shadow of another tiny arm stretched out beyond the curled pair he glimpsed earlier. They really are having twins. 

“Well,” Caitlin says brightly, “your odds of having a daughter are good.” 

“Huh?” Cisco wanders in, catches sight of the screen, and yelps in delight. “Oh wow! Dude, come here, I have to—Caity, let me just squeak past—c’mere!” Heedless of the gel still smeared on Barry’s abdomen, Cisco pulls him into a tight embrace. Barry goes rigid but doesn’t push him away. “Go you! I couldn’t do it, no way no how, but look at you. You’re gonna be a dad!” 

“I’m gonna have twins!” Barry rocks back and forth. Once he starts it, Cisco continues, to the point that Leonard doubts they’ll ever stop. 

“You know, if you need someone to talk to about—like, if things get worse, you can talk to me about it. Because dysphoria sucks even if you’re willing to deal with it for small cute twins.” Cisco pulls back, his eyes widening. “And if anyone at the CCPD makes fun of you, I’ll punch a cop for you. I’d do it.”

Cold rage settles in Leonard’s chest at the very thought. He’d been so ecstatic to get Barry back and to see their twins apparently doing well that he hadn’t considered the repercussions for Barry. 

“Don’t, don’t.” Barry takes a rag from Caitlin and wipes gel from his belly. “You don’t need to get in trouble for me. Anyway, Joe told me to tell him if anyone says anything to me. He says officers who’d mock me are just as likely to disrespect witnesses or harass protesters, and those aren’t people who should be on the force.”

“Dang, okay, Joe’s taking no prisoners on this one. Good to know.” Cisco pushes a curl behind his ear. 

“It was Singh’s policy originally,” Barry admits. “He took no shit from anyone, and he wouldn’t tolerate bigots on the force. And Joe already fired someone for making fun of Officer Tremarco, so it’s not just because it's me.”

Leonard lays a possessive hand on Barry’s shoulder, not shielding him from Cisco but from the as-yet-unrevealed bigots at the CCPD. “If something happens, give me names,” he promises. “I’ll make their lives hell.”

“No.” Barry grabs at his hand. “You still have a clean record, remember? Don’t get in trouble for me—and don’t kill anyone!”

“Not kill,” he vows. There are ways of making people suffer without killing them. He won’t say so aloud—it will spook Barry—but the implication is clear. 

“Okay, Captain Ominous.” Cisco lays a hand thoughtlessly on Barry’s belly. Leonard recognizes the shift in expression: he’s vibing, and caught off-guard by it. Against his will, he’s curious about what it will reveal. “They’re _cute!”_

“Really?” Barry perks up. Cisco nods. 

“It’s been so freakin’ long since I had a nice vibe. Yeah, they are. I didn’t know you had curls.” He addresses this to Leonard. “’Cause they must take after you in that regard. Barry’s hair is straighter than he is.”

Caitlin snorts. Barry mutters, “Hey,” without any heat. 

“Also they get their powers young, so, uh, be aware of that.” Cisco rubs his thumb across Barry’s belly. “They’re just really cute. I’m gonna spoil them rotten.”

“Supposing we let you near them,” Leonard mumbles. 

Barry glares at him. “Of course we will. And you too, Caitlin. They’re gonna have a big family. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He smiles, soft and fond and oh-so-sweet. Caitlin beams in response. 

“I’d like that.” Leonard might be the only one who hears her murmur, “Supposing the time loop doesn’t have effects we can’t see.” 

The time loop is going to hang over their heads until the twins are born. If something happens to them, Barry will be devastated. Leonard vows then that he won’t get attached to the idea of children until after they’re born. That way, if something goes wrong, he can focus entirely on being there for Barry.


	2. Chapter 2

Barry starts showing within two weeks of the ultrasound. It’s barely noticeable at first, and his penchant for loose clothing hides it easily. Nonetheless, Caitlin orders him to cut down on his running; Leonard, Cisco, and Frost take point on new meta cases, to Barry’s dismay. 

“I’m not _useless,”_ he fumes on one of their lazy nights. “I’m barely showing, I can still run! Plus, the twins would wind up in the Speed Force with me, I don’t think it would hurt them…”

“We don’t know that.” Leonard wraps an arm around his waist. “And if you get hit by the meta of the week, what could that do to them?” 

Barry concedes the point but remains sulky. Leonard is about to press him for details when he mutters, “I’m getting hips and I hate it.” 

That explains the mysterious disappearance of the beloved skinny jeans. Leonard had assumed they were getting tight around his belly, but this makes more sense. “What do you need to hear to make it better?” 

“Nothing.” He curls in on himself like he’s trying to hide. “I signed up for this, Caitlin walked me through everything that would happen and I still wanted to do it. I just hate it because I can already imagine the teasing once people notice. ‘All that binge-eating finally catch up to you, Allen?’ And then they’ll realize I’m pregnant and I—” His voice breaks. 

Leonard doesn’t know how to soothe him. He can imagine Barry’s horror if he even obliquely hints at terminating the pregnancy, and promising icy vengeance on thoughtless coworkers isn’t what he wants either. 

“I’m sorry,” Barry mutters. “It’s stupid, I’m hyperfixating on it and working myself up, I just don’t know how to stop. They’re gonna call me a girl and I’m _not,_ and I don’t wanna think about it before it even happens because it’s just torturing myself…” 

This Leonard can help with. He has experience pulling Barry out of his head. “You’re not a girl—never were,” he promises. Barry shoots him a nervous glance. He takes one of Barry’s hands in his and squeezes, hoping the pressure will quiet his runaway thoughts. “You’re the man that I fell head over heels for, and you’re more of one than anyone who harasses you will ever be.” 

Barry huddles against his side. “I feel like a walking lie,” he whispers. “Like I’m too _me_ to be a girl and too girly to be a guy. I mean, if I was really a man, would I even want to be pregnant?” 

“Stop that thought in its tracks, Scarlet.” Leonard slips his hand under the hem of Barry’s baggy shirt and rests it against bare skin. “You’re not less of a man for taking advantage of what your body can do. You’re doing what’s right for you, and anyone who shames you for that is going to find themselves with a few lost fingers and toes.” 

Barry moves his head, not quite happy-rocking but giving it his best attempt. His hand drifts back to his belly, something he’s been doing more and more. Leonard adjusts his hold so their fingers brush. “Are they moving yet?” 

“No, not yet. I’m kinda afraid they’ll kick for the first time when I’m at work and I’ll yelp or something.” Quietly, he adds, “I keep thinking that’ll make it worth it, like the moment I feel them moving and doing well I’ll be okay with everything. That’s not going to happen, is it?” 

He’s asking the wrong person. Still, Leonard can venture a reasonable guess. “No, Scarlet, I don’t think it will. It’s probably going to be a good experience, but no, I don’t think it’ll fix everything.” 

Barry nods. “Yeah, I figured. Still.” He moves his hand in small circles, as though he’s trying to comfort their twins. “It’s a nice thought.” 

It’s perhaps a week later when Barry bursts through the door, not at his usual speed but with more than his usual enthusiasm. “Len, they kicked!” 

Leonard gets up just in time to catch an excited speedster. “Hey, Scarlet,” he coos. 

“They kicked! I was talking with Cecile about baby Jenna and it kinda felt like I missed a step coming down from the lab, and—here, feel!” He guides Leonard’s hand to his belly. Try though he might, Leonard doesn’t feel anything unusual. “Oh…maybe they’re asleep.” 

Privately, Leonard is glad. Even in the face of Barry’s relentless optimism, he’s trying not to get attached to their twins lest something go wrong. If he felt them kicking—seemingly alive and well—he might not be able to maintain that careful distance. “Could Cecile tell?” 

Barry nods. “She got to feel. She’s excited—she says she’s glad Jenna will have cousins her age to play with, and I said the odds are good they’ll all be metas and then how will we cope?” 

“Keep the house below freezing?” Leonard offers. 

Barry rolls his eyes, stops, and seems to consider it. “Well…I guess we’ll see how soon they get their speed and how much mischief they get up to when they do.” 

Leonard doesn’t allow himself to picture it—two small, curly-haired children, tearing around the house with lightning streaking behind them. He can’t think about a future that might at any second be torn away. “If they’re anything like you, Scarlet? Not a force in this world could keep them out of mischief.” 

“You can talk,” Barry grumbles affectionately. 

He bursts into spontaneous bouts of happy rocking throughout the rest of the night. When Leonard asks why, he confesses, “I can’t believe they kicked.” Each time thereafter, Leonard pulls him into a hug and rocks with him. He might not be willing to share Barry’s joy, but he can at least encourage him to savor it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where the transphobia tag comes into play, because most of the people at CCPD are assholes.

It’s less than a week later that Barry returns home some three hours early, quivering and tearstained. Leonard leaps to his feet and catches him in his arms. “Scarlet, what happened?”

“I’m so _bad!”_ he bursts out. “I can’t—head won’t—crying and angry and can’t focus and—”

Leonard has seen Barry get locked into an angry headspace like this a handful of times. He needs pulled out of it, because he won’t calm down by himself. “Scarlet, come on, sit down. Come here, tell me what’s wrong. Deep breaths, and just tell me what went wrong.” 

Barry drags in a shaky breath. The words tumble from him in a blur, without breaths or pauses. “IwenttogiveJoeareportandsomeonesawmybellyandsaidIlookedpregnantandthey…” He clenches his fists until the knuckles go white. “They laughed at me and called me a brood mare and slut and a…” Whatever he’s going to say lodges in his throat. Leonard has a good idea of what it was. He certainly doesn’t need to hear it said aloud; what Barry has told him makes rage settle in his belly like cold fire. 

“Who was it?” 

His tone snaps Barry out of his angry spiral. “Joe handled it, Joe handled it! It’s done, it’s all over, it just stuck with me and I got angrier and angrier until Joe told me to go home, and I hate my head and I hate hyperfocusing on insults and I _am_ a slut and no. No. Stopping now.” He digs his hands into his thighs. Leonard wants to soothe him, to massage the backs of his hands and lavish him with praise, but the insults stick in his mind as firmly as they’d lodged in Barry’s. 

“They called you a _brood mare?”_

“Well, no, they used a worse term, but that was the gist of it, that I'm only good for being bred like some kind of _animal_.” Barry drops his gaze to his hands. “I don’t want to leave the crime lab ever again. Joe is going to come up for reports from now on.” 

If Leonard ever identifies this person, he’ll ice each limb off in slow, careful pieces. His boy is so much more than a _brood mare._ “You know, don’t you, that this doesn’t define your worth to me? Whether you have the twins or lose them, whatever happens—you’ll always be mine. My Scarlet. My boy.” 

“I know.” Barry curls into a ball. “I just hate that now everyone else is always going to look at me as the little slut CSI who got pregnant and looks like a _freak._ Why does it even fucking matter what I do with my body, other than letting people know I’m not a real boy?” 

“Scarlet, I told you. You’re more of a man than any of those pigs who mock you, and what I need you to do…” He brushes his thumb lightly across Barry’s cheekbone. He flinches away, and Leonard draws back. “Is own it. Words will never roll off your back the way they do mine—you haven’t had the practice—but if you own it, they don’t stick quite as long.” 

Slowly, Barry nods. “Joe said the same thing. I just don’t know how to own it when it’s not…I don’t know, how can I own something that doesn’t feel like me?” 

Leonard shrugs. He can slip into and out of personas like donning and shedding his parka; Barry can’t shift facades with such ease. “I’m not sure.” 

To keep Barry from dwelling any longer on his colleagues’ cruelty, Leonard enlists his help in making doughnuts, an art he’s never quite perfected but is always willing to attempt. It’s an effective distraction. It’s hard to dwell on slurs when they’re up to their elbows in flour. After their first batch of doughnuts turn out more oblong than circular, Barry declares that they’re making Long Johns and whips up a thick cream filling, most of which doesn’t make it into the doughnuts. (“What? I have cravings!”) Leonard packages a baker’s dozen into a tin to take to the Rogues; the others fall prey to Barry’s sweet tooth. 

Unfortunately, distraction only lasts so long. Leonard realizes this at three in the morning, when he wakes to piteous cries. In his arms, Barry is rigid and whimpering. Lightning arcs off his skin like static, shockingly bright in the dark room. 

“Barry.” He rubs a hand over his shoulder and receives a stinging shock for his trouble. “Barry, wake up. Come on.”

He bolts awake with a barely coherent shout that sounds like “I don’t know where I am!” Leonard’s heart aches. Even before Barry speaks, he knows what the nightmare was. 

“Len, I was back there, I was in the time loop, and I could feel the twins dying, oh God what if they’re dead, what if I killed them and I don’t know it yet, I’m so bad, bad parent bad partner bad everything they’re _dead—”_

“Barry, shh.” He pulls Barry close and lets him bury his face in his shoulder. Tears soak his nightshirt. “You’re home, you’re safe. The twins are safe. I’m right here. It’s just a dream.”

“Just a dream?” Barry echoes pitifully. 

“Just a dream,” Leonard agrees. He knows the nightmares Barry endures aren’t ‘just’ anything, the same way his Oculus nightmares weren’t ‘just dreams.’ That’s not what Barry needs to hear right now, not when he’s half-asleep and panicking. “You’re safe.”

“Safe,” Barry echoes. Leonard doubts he’s awake enough to form a full thought. As Barry had once done for him, he keeps up a steady stream of reassuring nonsense until Barry’s breathing evens out. In all likelihood, he’ll fall back into the same nightmare, or at least a similar one—the stress of the day manifesting itself. Leonard can’t prevent it, but he can soothe him as much as he needs.


	4. Chapter 4

Things don’t get better. Banned from Flash work, Barry spends his time either hiding in the crime lab or tucked in the apartment. Leonard consults first Caitlin (“Physically, he and the twins are fine”), Cisco (“Dysphoria sucks, dude, but I dunno what to tell you to do—pregnancy isn’t on my radar”), and finally Google. Through the latter, he learns an alarming fact that he takes up with Barry immediately. 

“Hey Scarlet?”

“Hmm?” They’re relaxing on the sofa, Barry stretched out between Leonard’s legs with his back against Leonard’s abdomen. There’s some kind of documentary about deep-sea life playing on the television, in which Barry had been engrossed and Leonard reluctantly intrigued. “What’s up?”

Leonard turns down the volume on the documentary. “I was looking around online—I know, that was my first mistake—” Barry laughs. “—and I read something about pregnancy possibly making your breasts come back?”

Barry shakes his head. “Oh, no. I know what you’re talking about, but no. It can happen if the surgeon leaves any breast tissue behind—the hormone changes can trigger new growth—but I asked for everything to be removed. Family history of breast cancer—it’s safer,” he adds by way of explanation. He glances down at his belly. “I’m a little sad that I won’t get to breastfeed them, though. Cecile says it hurts like hell after a while but it’s this cuddly safe time, and I know it’s another way I’m a bad parent because formula still doesn’t have all the right nutrients…” 

“You’re not a bad parent.” Leonard rubs a hand over Barry’s belly. There’s a little twitch under his hand—someone is flailing. He pictures a curly-haired little girl happy-rocking the way Barry does and has to push the image aside. There’s still no guarantee the twins will survive. “You did what was right for you. It won’t affect our babies.”

Barry glances up at him. “You’re sure?” 

Leonard nods. “Formula-fed babies grow up perfectly healthy, Scarlet. And if you’re afraid of losing the cuddle time, I guarantee you’re going to be too enamored of them to let them go. They’re not going to lack for time with you. With either of us,” he amends. If all goes well and the twins are healthy, he’s never going to let them out of his sight. 

Barry is quiet. Presently, he murmurs, “If we have a girl, I want to name her Nora, for my mom.”

“Nora Joy.” Leonard has thought the same thing. The certainty with which he says it makes Barry glance up at him again. 

“Joy? Was that your mother’s name?” 

Leonard nods. He remembers less of his mother than he wants to—she died before Lewis was released from prison, when Leonard was still small. Still, what he can remember is good, and he would wish her strength for his children. “And if we have two girls?”

“I’d kinda like to name one of them Jesse, for Jesse Wells.” Barry twines their fingers together. Both of them feel one of the twins kick. “I dunno. I guess we can wait, y’know, come up with names once we see who’s who.” 

_If,_ Leonard reminds himself. 

That night, after Barry is asleep, he slips out of bed, grabs a journal from the depths of his bedside table, and sneaks out to the kitchen to write. He started this project on Caitlin’s advice: a journal of letters to the twins, to be given to them if they survive or burned if they don’t. The first letter, from roughly the fourth month, details for them all the difficulties they face: the Crisis, the time loop, the unknown effects of exposure to the Speed Force when they were so young. Every entry since details the events of a subsequent month. 

_Two months until you’re due, and we’ve started to think about names. Started—that sounds like we made progress. We’ve decided to wait until you’re born. I’m not sure why your papa wants to wait, but I don’t know if I can give you names and then…They say naming something gives it power, and I’m terrified of letting you two have the power to hurt me if something goes wrong._

_By now, Caitlin is pretty sure you’re both developing well, but she’s the first to admit that the time loop might have had effects that can’t be seen on an ultrasound. You can’t imagine how it feels to see the two of you on that screen. You’re upside down now. Your papa says it was extremely uncomfortable to feel you flipping around, but you look comfortable now, not that there’s room to move if you aren’t. One of you keeps winding the umbilical cord around your wrist like a bracelet._

He pauses to dash tears from his eyes. Fuck, he’s gotten attached. The whole point of this exercise was to maintain his distance—or was it? It would be entirely like Caitlin to subtly encourage him to grow fond of the twins. It’s like these hopeless do-gooders want everyone to have to deal with a broken heart. 

_I love you both. I haven’t wanted to admit it, because if I love you and lose you I don’t know if I’ll be able to bear it, but I do. I love you so much, and every time I see you on that screen or feel you kick against my palm I think of how much I want to hold you. I’m so, so scared._ He almost blacks out that sentence with his pen. Is it fair to let them know that? Then he decides that, by the time he deems them old enough to give them the journal, they’ll want that sort of vulnerability from him. Certainly he would rather err on the side of letting them know how loved they are. _Two months, for better or for worse. Two months until, I hope, I can hold you and tell you in person._

He shuts the journal and buries his face in his hands. Tears wet his palms—fuck, he didn’t want to cry. The purpose of this exercise is not to cry. How can he be strong for Barry if he can’t make it through writing a journal entry?

“Len?” Barry sounds sleepy-soft and bewildered. Before Leonard can turn around, he presses against his side. “Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing. Headache.” At least his voice is steady. 

“What’s this?” Barry slides the journal away from him. There’s a rustle of pages—he’s speed-reading. When he’s done, he breathes, “Oh, _Len”_ in a way that makes it obvious he’s crying. 

“It was Caitlin’s idea.” Leonard swipes away tears and turns to comfort his boy. “I didn’t want you to find out. I want this to be a happy time for you.” 

Barry gives a watery, derisive laugh. “A happy time? Do you mean the dysphoria that’s gotten so bad I can’t leave the house? Or my colleagues? Or the fact that I really don’t know if our babies are going to live, and if they die it’s going to be my fault, and until just now I thought I was the only one who felt like that?" His voice breaks and he continues in a whisper, "Because the last few months have been awful.” 

“Oh, Barry.” He pulls him into his lap and cuddles him close. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You seemed so happy every time we started talking about the twins that I couldn’t, I couldn’t ruin it for you.” Barry curls in on himself, shielding his belly. “It’s my fault, we should have stopped trying the moment the Monitor warned us about Crisis, if they die it’s my fault…”

“Oh, Scarlet, no.” Leonard presses a lingering kiss to Barry’s temple. “The reason I didn’t want to get attached is so I could be strong for you if the twins…die. I knew you’d blame yourself and I couldn’t let you. You’re not to blame, this is not your fault.” 

Barry curls against him, weeping softly. Leonard rocks him slowly back and forth until his sobs subside. “Come on, Scarlet,” he coos. “You need to sleep.”

Earlier in his pregnancy, Leonard might have scooped and carried Barry to bed. He doesn’t dare now, both for fear of hurting Barry and out of the inability to lift him. Instead, they shuffle to the bedroom together, Barry leaning on him as though half-asleep. 

“You don’t have to take me seriously,” he confesses. “I started crying at kitten pictures earlier today. I think it’s just that stage of pregnancy.” 

“Don’t dismiss your feelings like that, Scarlet.” Leonard swaddles him in blankets despite knowing he runs warm enough for both of them. “You have a right to be worried about the future. I have been since the first ultrasound.” 

He curls against Barry’s back, wraps an arm around him, and rests his hand gently against his belly. There’s a little rustle against his palm—someone is stirring. 

“I love you,” he whispers against Barry’s shoulder. For the first time, he directs it at all three of them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized the overall tone of the fic had turned far more depressing than originally intended, so hopefully this lightens the mood. Also, the video referenced is [Markiplier's Try Not To Laugh 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEXBcXhw2RY&list=PL3tRBEVW0hiDASYbDpMYOzbuWlg18O7Wa&index=20&t=0s).

Leonard comes home one day to find Cisco sitting beside Barry on the sofa. Both of them are laughing so hard they’re crying. 

“…What are you doing?” Leonard asks. He's almost too afraid to ask. 

Barry looks up at him, tears streaming down his cheeks, and gasps, “Pregananant?!” 

On Cisco’s phone, a man pronounces, “But—my God, why was that—he was just reading wrong spellings of the word ‘pregnant!’” 

_“Pergenat,”_ Cisco wheezes, pausing the video. “Well, Barry, you’re the one to ask—is it possible having sex to a eight months fregnant?” 

“Don’t answer that,” Leonard growls as Barry dissolves into helpless laughter. (The answer, as it happens, is ‘yes.’ Barry has cycled between sex-repulsed and insatiably horny, with no pattern Leonard can discern.) 

“Pregananant!” Barry squeaks breathlessly. 

Against his better judgment, Leonard sits down on the sofa. “I suppose I should watch this alleged video.”

By the time the last horrifyingly hilarious misspelling has been pronounced, Leonard is laughing too, although not nearly as hard as Barry or Cisco. “How did you find this?” he asks of Cisco. 

“I was looking for weird videos to show Harry, like, two years ago.” Cisco shrugs, still trembling with little giggly aftershocks of his earlier laughter. “I liked watching his head explode from weird things. I figured Barry might get a laugh out of it too.” 

In fact, Barry enjoys it so much that later that night, in the middle of what’s supposed to be sweet, affirming sex, he bursts out laughing and gasps, “Dangerops prangent sex? Will it hurt baby top of his head?” 

Against his will, Leonard chuckles. “You’re banned from YouTube.” 

(He says it again while they’re cuddling, post-coital and happy. Leonard just rolls his eyes and gives Barry a kiss.)


	6. Chapter 6

Leonard brushes Barry’s hair back from his brow. Barry’s eyes drift open and he whispers, “The twins?” 

“Healthy.” Leonard’s heart had almost stopped when Caitlin held up a curled little bundle. The somewhat belated, wailing cry was the best thing he’d heard in months. Two minutes later, the second twin started crying, little hitching sobs reminiscent of Barry. “Caitlin said she had to keep testing them for a few minutes.”

Barry slumps back on the pillow and gives a dazed laugh. His eyes drift closed again—he’s exhausted and still half out of his head on painkillers. Leonard makes soft hushing sounds at him. “They’re safe. Oh God they’re safe.” With another laugh, he admits, “I’m never doing this again.”

“No,” Leonard agrees more forcefully than he means to. This day alone has been nerve-wracking enough—fourteen terrible hours that started with blood all down Barry’s legs and ended with an emergency C-section after determining that his healing factor made a prolonged natural birth all but impossible. Add to that the preceding months of stress: no, they will never do this again. 

Caitlin comes over, a tiny bundle of pale purple cloth in her arms and a broad smile on her face. “They’re both perfectly healthy,” she pronounces. “A little small, but that’s to be expected with twins. Here’s your baby girl.” She eases the tiny purple bundle into Barry’s arms and disappears, presumably to fetch the second twin. 

Barry nudges the purple cloth aside to glimpse their little girl’s wrinkled face. She’s tinted slightly orange, such that Leonard’s first, deadpan reaction is, “I think you just gave birth to our next president.” 

“Shut up, you’re the worst!” Barry is too loud. Their little girl’s eyes flutter and her mouth drops open around a wail. “Oh, no no no, honey, shh, not you. No, your Abba is the worst, not you.” 

“‘Abba?’” Leonard asks, arching an eyebrow. 

Barry glances up at him. “I’m their papa, so you’ve got to be something else. I dunno, I just thought…you don’t do religious stuff, I know, but you _are_ Jewish…” 

He considers. ‘Abba’ doesn’t sound so bad, and Barry’s logic is sound. “All right, Abba it is. On the subject of names, what are we calling this little gem?” He slips his finger into their baby’s curled fist. Her skin is soft and damp, so delicate he fears a careless touch could shred it. “Is this our little Nora Joy?”

Caitlin’s voice interrupts their tender moment. “Here’s your baby boy.” 

Leonard turns to take him. Like his sister, their bitty boy is swaddled in purple. Also like his sister, it only serves to emphasize his shockingly orange cheeks. “Why are they orange?”

“They’re jaundiced. It’s normal,” she hurries to assure him, “it should resolve on its own, but just to make sure, put them in the sunlight for a couple of hours every day until it clears up.” She beams down at their baby boy. “They’re precious.” 

Leonard nods. The tiny boy is alert and staring; one tiny fist peeks free of the blanket and waves aimlessly. He presses his lips to the baby’s soft little fingers and makes quiet kissing noises that draw the baby’s attention. “Hi,” he coos. 

“Let me see!” Barry cranes his neck. Leonard holds their little boy at a better angle. Barry is instantly enraptured. “Oh, look at him. What are we gonna call him?” 

“Michael,” Leonard decides. (He mustn’t let anyone nickname baby Michael ‘Mick.’ While it is indeed Mick’s given name, telling him that he named a child after him would either bewilder or annoy him.) 

“Michael,” Barry coos. “Michael and Nora. Look at them.” He nuzzles Nora’s tufty dark hair. “So worth it.” 

“Say that in two years,” Leonard mutters. Still, looking down at Michael’s peaceful, wrinkly face, he has to agree. (Still, as Barry said: they’re not doing this again. On that point, too, Leonard agrees.)

Later, after Barry has fallen into the sound sleep of the profoundly exhausted, Leonard watches over both of their twins. Nora, like her father, falls soundly asleep; Michael stays awake a while longer, peering at the world with wide, too-blue eyes. Leonard scoops him up and rocks slowly back and forth until he falls asleep.

"There," he murmurs. He could probably settle Michael back in his makeshift bassinet, but he's enjoying the opportunity to finally hold him. That thought makes him remember what he'd promised the twins months ago. "I love you," he whispers to Michael, then repeats it to baby Nora. "I will always love both of you."

It's the kind of promise he never received, one more way to differentiate himself from the monster that defined his childhood. It's also, he thinks as he looks down at his sleeping babies, undeniably, irrevocably true.


End file.
